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# IRAS: The Infrared Revolution That Changed Astronomy Forever
This is your Astronomy Tonight podcast.
Today we're celebrating June 13th, and I've got a wonderful piece of astronomical history to share with you. On this date in 1983, the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, or IRAS as it's commonly known, was launched into orbit. Now, this might not sound as glamorous as landing on the Moon, but let me tell you, IRAS absolutely revolutionized how we see the universe.
Picture this: for decades, astronomers had been looking at the cosmos through visible light, the same light our eyes can see. But they knew there was so much more out there hiding in infrared radiation, the heat signatures that objects in space emit. The problem was, Earth's atmosphere blocks most of that infrared light from reaching our telescopes on the ground. So what did we do? We sent a satellite to space to bypass that problem entirely.
IRAS was a joint mission between NASA, the British Science and Engineering Research Council, and the Dutch agency for aerospace programs. It carried a telescope with a mirror just twenty-two inches in diameter, which doesn't sound huge until you realize this was the first space-based infrared observatory of its kind. The satellite was cooled to incredibly cold temperatures using liquid helium, which allowed it to detect the faintest infrared signals from distant galaxies and stellar nurseries.
During its operational lifetime, which lasted about ten months, IRAS scanned nearly the entire sky and catalogued over a quarter million infrared sources. It discovered five new comets, found the first direct evidence of a dust disk around another star, and gave us glimpses of dusty galaxies we'd never seen before. The infrared universe that IRAS unveiled showed us that star formation was happening in places we thought were empty, and it fundamentally changed our understanding of how galaxies evolve.
What makes this mission even more special is that the data IRAS collected is still being analyzed and published by astronomers today, more than forty years later. It's the gift that keeps on giving, a testament to how a well-designed space mission can provide decades of scientific value.
I hope you enjoyed learning about this milestone in astronomical history. If you want to hear more stories like this, please subscribe to the Astronomy Tonight podcast. For additional information about today's topic or anything else we've discussed, check out Quiet Please dot AI. Thank you for listening to another Quiet Please production.
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By Inception Point AIThis is your Astronomy Tonight podcast.
Today we're celebrating June 13th, and I've got a wonderful piece of astronomical history to share with you. On this date in 1983, the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, or IRAS as it's commonly known, was launched into orbit. Now, this might not sound as glamorous as landing on the Moon, but let me tell you, IRAS absolutely revolutionized how we see the universe.
Picture this: for decades, astronomers had been looking at the cosmos through visible light, the same light our eyes can see. But they knew there was so much more out there hiding in infrared radiation, the heat signatures that objects in space emit. The problem was, Earth's atmosphere blocks most of that infrared light from reaching our telescopes on the ground. So what did we do? We sent a satellite to space to bypass that problem entirely.
IRAS was a joint mission between NASA, the British Science and Engineering Research Council, and the Dutch agency for aerospace programs. It carried a telescope with a mirror just twenty-two inches in diameter, which doesn't sound huge until you realize this was the first space-based infrared observatory of its kind. The satellite was cooled to incredibly cold temperatures using liquid helium, which allowed it to detect the faintest infrared signals from distant galaxies and stellar nurseries.
During its operational lifetime, which lasted about ten months, IRAS scanned nearly the entire sky and catalogued over a quarter million infrared sources. It discovered five new comets, found the first direct evidence of a dust disk around another star, and gave us glimpses of dusty galaxies we'd never seen before. The infrared universe that IRAS unveiled showed us that star formation was happening in places we thought were empty, and it fundamentally changed our understanding of how galaxies evolve.
What makes this mission even more special is that the data IRAS collected is still being analyzed and published by astronomers today, more than forty years later. It's the gift that keeps on giving, a testament to how a well-designed space mission can provide decades of scientific value.
I hope you enjoyed learning about this milestone in astronomical history. If you want to hear more stories like this, please subscribe to the Astronomy Tonight podcast. For additional information about today's topic or anything else we've discussed, check out Quiet Please dot AI. Thank you for listening to another Quiet Please production.